Kelly McCullough, Cybermancy

Cybermancy

Kelly McCullough

Ace, Oct 2007, $6.99

ISBN: 9780441015382

Necessity created the magical web (mweb) in order to interconnect the infinite worlds of the multiverse as a means to keep chaos under control. Sorcerer Prince Ravirn of the house of Fate was chosen as the web administrator because of his superior hacker skills. However, as is his way, alienates his three great-aunts, the Fates (Clothos, Atropros, and Lachesis). Actually it was Lachesis who exiled her nephew and his best friend webgoblin-laptop Melchior from the family; while Clothos renamed him Raven of chaos.

Ravirn's (Don't call me Raven) girlfriend Cerice mourns the death of her webpixie-PDA Shara, who died saving her mistress; life. Making her grief insurmountable and driving Raven crazy is that Shara the PDA contained Cerice's doctorate in Computer Science. Thus her paper is on the other side of the River Styx with no way of retrieving it without trickery. Ravirn has a plan to fool his poker buddy Cerberus, the guardian of the underworld and hack into Lucifer's database to retrieve Shara. Ravirn succeeds, but the outcome proves different than he imagined. Instead of kisses, he finds the mweb is falling apart as if a worm is eating away one byte at a time and Lucifer is madder than hell that someone hacked into his computer. As his great-aunts predicted Ravirn has brought chaos into order and they fear that even worse he plans to fix his mistakes by deleting and rebooting the multiverse.

This zany mixing of computer technology with mythology is a cleverly designed satire in which the audience will have a great time following the antics of Ravirn in the mythological information age. The amusing story line spoofs American top secret paranoia as Ravirn hacks into Lucifer's protected database and abducts Shara from the other side while correcting his miscues with greater errors. Readers who appreciate something different will want to read this enjoyable insane sequel to the as much fun and crazy WEBMAGE.

Harriet Klausner